The following map-in-progress was my original plan for last month's challenge, but I just got too busy to get to it, so I'm creating it now. Then and now, my plan is to create a set of maps, along with illustrations, cover art, articles on Japanese bathing tradition, a room-by-room gazetteer, statted NPCs, a new ghost template, and 3 custom haunts. I am planning to create a series of supplements for my Kaidan - Japanese horror setting (PFRPG), called Haiku of Horror series. Hopefully I'll be able to create a different one each month for a 12 products per year basis.

This is a Japanese Bathhouse or sento, and this one with the water from a natural hot spring. The following is the first floor (bathing floor). Japanese bathhouses are segregated by caste and sex. The right side of the map is for male bathers, the left side for female bathers. With the entrance at the bottom center of the map, the lobby sits just above the entrance. The rooms at the bottom corners are changing rooms with clothing lockers within. The chambers above these are washing rooms. Above those is the actual bath chambers. The three rooms at the top of the map are upper caste chambers which feature a dining/sitting room and adjacent private baths.

In Japanese bathing tradition, one washes off the dirt with soap and water, but this is not done in the bath tub, so as not to unduly dirty the water, which will be used by others. You sit on a bench with bucket and brush and soap/rinse first. Once clean then you enter the hot bath water to soak and relax.

So as to show you the process with how I create my hand-drawn maps, I'm posting 3 images. The first one is a vector drawing of rectangles created in Xara Xtreme Pro 4 (my drawing/mapping application of choice). This I print at 18" x 24" dimensions onto my large format laser printer.

Then I tape this image down to a table, place a sheet of tracing paper on top, taped down and use the drawing beneath as a guide to getting my hand-drawn lines straight and properly placed. The second image is the hand-drawing by itself.

Finally, I create the final vector shapes giving appropriate colors, bevels and drop shadows, which I place in stacked order beneath the hand-drawing. This is the final (for the first floor).

I plan to create 3 more floors: the tea room/restaurant level, staff living/sleeping quarters on the next level, and the managers office/living quarters as the top floor. I will produce those other floors over the next few days.

GP

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Gamerprinter

11-09-2012, 08:54 PM

For those who play Pathfinder games, the following is one of the custom haunts that will be included in the final product, these maps are for...

Wet Hair haunt CR 3
XP 960
NE minor haunt, persistent
Notice Perception DC 13 to notice a disturbance just under the water's surface.
Knowledge Check Knowledge (planes or religion) DC 15
hp 1280; trigger proximity; reset 24 hours
Caster Level 6
Effect: vengeful spirits of a tormented women can sometimes manifest as great piles of water soaked hair found in springs, wells, containers such as buckets or tubs, and in bath tubs (ofoto). Hidden in the depths of the areas they are found, when hands are thrust beneath the water great volumes of long, black, wet hair is brought up and suddenly the hair becomes animated and attacks the touching victim in a strangulation attempt with a 10 ft reach, as per the strangling hair spell (Ultimate Magic).
Destruction: must lay the Yurei no Kami (ghost), Kana, to rest.

Bogie

11-09-2012, 11:46 PM

Nice work Gamerprinter.

Gamerprinter

11-10-2012, 06:44 AM

Thanks, Bogie!

I tweaked the map, darkening some of the colors and fixing the wood slat graphic on the floor. Just a quick touch up, work on the next floor tomorrow.

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amberroberts09

11-10-2012, 07:51 AM

Nice work!!!!

jtougas

11-10-2012, 09:57 AM

Great as usual. :)

Gamerprinter

11-13-2012, 11:56 AM

Thanks, guys!

Next is level two: the teahouse/restaurant/gambling hall level (in the daytime), used as a communal sleeping room with futons on the floor for groups of people, pilgrims, at a lower fee than private suites.

Note the entrance from the first floor has an arched roof over it.

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Gamerprinter

11-14-2012, 09:59 PM

Next level: the staff communal quarters, or in the case of a yakuza controlled house, this is the Kyodai (gang) common quarters.

One more level to go...

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Gamerprinter

11-15-2012, 12:16 PM

I've completed all four floors of the Autumn Moon Bathhouse, including placing grids. Next I will work on the bathhouse grounds with additional noble suites, an oriental garden, covered walkways, and outbuildings.

I had a color problem with my monitor, so I just replaced it and got the colors back to normal.

GP

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Jacktannery

11-16-2012, 02:55 PM

Lovely maps.

Gamerprinter

11-19-2012, 12:03 AM

Well, I'm opting not to do the Garden and Grounds map for several reasons:

1. A bath house map doesn't require a garden and grounds to be useful in game - just the four floor plans are needed.
2. Doing a preliminary page layout for this product, I've got 18 pages so far - which is really big for an encounter site product.
3. I still need to provide sliced versions of the full scale maps and that will create 64 additional pages by itself, plus 4 full scale single map versions (4 more pages).

That's 86 pages for an intended single complex encounter which is not even a complete adventure module. This already is a big product.

My goal is to offer this for $2.99 or $3.99. My full module adventure products sell for $9.99 and they are only 60 pages long!?!

I think I'm done with this location. I do plan to create both a Zaoist temple and Yokinto shrine maps in the future, and both would include Japanese gardens - so I'll leave the garden to those products when I get to them.

GP

Gamerprinter

11-20-2012, 03:55 PM

As an aside, I just got Justin Sluder (author of Faces of the Tarnished Souk series from Rite Publishing's Coleseum Morpheuon setting) who will be looking over my mechanics and creating multiple CR versions of the ghosts, beasties and NPCs created for this series. My concern is that my Kickstarter funded campaign setting handbooks having a very long development time and release not until October 2013, I need some Kaidan releases to fill the huge swathe of time between now and then. This series fits the bill...